Citing anonymous
sources, German news agency dpa had earlier reported that the
Russian hacking group APT28 had placed malware in a government
network and infiltrated both the Foreign Ministry and the Defense
Ministry.

The sources said the malware could
have remained in the government's networks for as long as a year
before the government discovered
the breach in December.

Security
services reportedly allowed the malware to remain in the system until
Wednesday to try and gather information about the attack and who was
responsible.

… The hackers reportedly infiltrated the
government's "Informationsverbund Berlin-Bonn" (IVBB)
network, a specially designed communications platform which is
separate from other public networks to ensure a
supposed added layer of security. It's used exclusively
by the chancellery, the German parliament, federal ministries, the
Federal Audit Office and several security institutions in Berlin and
Bonn; the former German capital where some ministries still have
offices.

The government said it receives roughly 20
attempted hacking attacks per day, while German intelligence services
also carry out penetration tests once per week.

… Some opposition lawmakers have criticized
the security services for failing to inform them about the attack.

"If the government has known about this since
December, the fact that lawmakers responsible for oversight of
[digital affairs] had to learn of it through the press is really
scandalous," the Left Party's cyber expert, Anke Domscheit-Berg,
told public broadcaster ZDF.

… The group's 2015 attack on the Bundestag was
so far-reaching that the German government was forced to replace its
entire IT infrastructure.

Apparently Equifax is
still discovering new ways to find out what happened on its systems.
Shouldn’t they know from sources they already used to manage their
security? Oh wait, that’s right, they didn’t manage their
security.

Equifax Inc (EFX.N),
a provider of consumer credit scores, on Thursday said it found
another 2.4 million U.S. consumers hit by a data breach last year,
bringing the total to 147.9 million.

The company said the latest batch of
consumers affected had their names and driver’s license information
stolen, but noted less information was taken because it did not
include home addresses, driver’s license states, dates of
issuances, or expiration dates.

Malicious
Use of Artificial Intelligence: Forecasting, Prevention, and
Mitigation

“This
report surveys the landscape of potential security threats from
malicious uses of AI, and proposes ways to better forecast, prevent,
and mitigate these threats. After analyzing the ways in which AI may
influence the threat landscape in the digital, physical, and
political domains, we make four high-level recommendations for AI
researchers and other stakeholders. We also suggest several
promising areas for further research that could expand the portfolio
of defenses, or make attacks less effective or harder to execute.
Finally, we discuss, but do not conclusively resolve, the long-term
equilibrium of attackers and defenders.” arXiv:1802.07228
[cs.AI] (or arXiv:1802.07228v1
[cs.AI] for this version)

The
New York Times: “There’s a new generation of cameras that
understand what they see. They’re eyes connected to brains,
machines that no longer just see what you put in front of them, but
can act on it — creating intriguing and sometimes eerie
possibilities. At first, these cameras will promise to let us take
better pictures, to capture moments that might not have been possible
with every dumb camera that came before. That’s the pitch Google
is making with Clips,
a new camera that went on sale on Tuesday. It uses so-called machine
learning to automatically take snapshots of people, pets and other
things it finds interesting… Now, A.I. will create a revolution in
how cameras work, too. Smart cameras will let you analyze pictures
with prosecutorial precision, raising the specter of a new
kind of surveillance — not just by the government but by
everyone around you, even your loved ones at home…”

Microsoft
and UPMC unveil virtual AI assistant that listens in and takes notes
on doctor’s visits

Every day, doctors and nurses across the country
do a complicated dance around patient care. They turn back and forth
as a mother describes her child’s symptoms, trying to listen and
simultaneously log information in the electronic health record. They
huddle with a team to coordinate a cancer patient’s care using
whiteboards, post-it notes and clipboards.

Microsoft wants to use technology to make things
easier and more efficient in those situations. The company announced
a slew of new cloud- and artificial-intelligence-fueled technologies
Wednesday as part of its Healthcare
NExT program, all aimed at helping healthcare providers wage a
technology revolution in the industry.

The company announced four new projects: A
healthcare-focused Azure
cloud blueprint; Microsoft
Genomics, a platform that powers genetic analysis and
personalized medicine; A new
template for Microsoft Teams specialized for healthcare
providers; and Empower
MD: an artificial intelligence platform that can assist doctors
by listening in and
learning from their conversations with patients.[Will
AI eventually be recognized as a ‘third party’ in this
conversation, effectively eliminating any claim to privacy? Bob]

Networking startup Mist
Systems Inc., which has built a self-learning wireless local area
network for enterprises that’s powered by artificial intelligence
technologies, is gearing up for expansion after landing a $46 million
late-stage funding round.

… Mist is quickly making a name for itself
thanks to its Wireless
LAN offering, which is essentially just a local area network for
enterprises that doesn’t rely on wired Ethernet connections. The
company said its Wireless LAN is superior to other networks, claiming
it’s the world’s first “self-learning network” powered by its
proprietary AI technology.

The self-learning capabilities means that many of
the laborious tasks associated with managing the network can be
automated. In addition, Mist said, its Wireless LAN helps to make
Wi-Fi services more predictable, reliable and measurable by providing
greater visibility into the network’s inner workings.

On the heels of the Federal Trade
Commission’s (“FTC”) third annual “PrivacyCon,”
the Future of Privacy Forum hosted its eighth annual “Privacy
Papers for Policymakers” event on Capitol Hill—a gathering in
which academics present their original scholarly works on
privacy-related topics to D.C. policy wonks who may have a hand in
shaping laws and regulations at the local, federal, and international
level. The goal of the event is, in part, to foster
academic-industry collaboration in addressing the world’s current
and emerging privacy issues.

… The DNC dubs its effort the "IWillVote"
program and says it sets the party's most ambitious goal ever for a
midterm election.

It will consist of new branding and content, tools
and technologies, a voter hotline, online ads, and on-the-ground
organizing — all with the aim of getting people to commit early to
voting and then following through with them to ensure they register
and ultimately turn out.

My students were very reluctant to ask Facebook
(et al) to identify potential school shooters, but isn’t that what
the EU is suggesting they could do?

The European Union on Thursday upped its ante
against tech companies, including Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Facebook
Inc. and Twitter Inc., announcing sweeping guidelines for speedily
scrubbing terror and other illegal content from their European
websites, following pressure by some national governments to make
internet firms legally liable for the information that appears on
their platforms.

The European Commission, the bloc’s executive,
said tech firms should remove terror content within one hour of it
being flagged...

(Related) Is it really better if we don’t know
these people (people Yahoo fears or hates?) are out there? Would it
be better to group them in a ‘comedy channel’ or a ‘collection
of examples for mental health workers to practice on?’

YouTube is
taking down conspiracy theorist channels and popular gun videos

In the wake of the
February 14 Parkland, FL school shooting, YouTube has banned a
considerable number of the most egregious conspiracy peddlers and
alt-righters from its ranks. The company also issued “warning
strikes” and partial suspensions to a number of other channels, at
least one of which was gun-focused. The move comes after months of
scandals regarding the site’s inability to properly moderate the
content published on its platform.

We discussed the chicken shortage in our Data
Management class (my classes are fun) so this will be a great
follow-up.

KFC outlets in the U.K. are reporting a shortage
of the fried chicken joint’s famous gravy just weeks after some
locations ran
out of chicken and were forced to close down.

… A spokesperson for KFC owner Yum
Brands told Reuters that while 97% of KFC locations have
reopened, the restaurants are going
through a gravy shortage due to “ongoing distribution
challenges” at DHL.

Judging by the recruiters at our last Job Fair, my
students are selling fast, so they need to keep their resumes
current!

… Google envisions the
Learn with
Google AI site serving as a repository for machine learning and
AI, and it’s meant to be a hub for anyone looking to “learn about
core ML concepts, develop and hone your ML skills, and apply ML to
real-world problems.” The site will apparently cater to all levels
of AI enthusiasts, from researchers looking for advanced tutorials to
beginners.

Links

About Me

I live in Centennial Colorado. (I'm not actually 100 years old., but I hope to be some day.) I'm an independant computer consultant, specializing in solving problems that traditional IT personnel tend to have difficulty with... That includes everything from inventorying hardware & software, to converting systems & data, to training end-users. I particularly enjoy taking on projects that IT has attempted several times before with no success. I also teach at two local Universities: everything from Introduction to Microcomputers through Business Continuity and Security Management. My background includes IT Audit, Computer Security, and a variety of unique IT projects.